Software simulation tools allow interactive design of real-time systems. An example of such a simulation tool is Stateflow®, from Mathworks, Natick, Mass. As an example, in the design of a control system for a vehicle engine, a simulation model of the engine and a control process can be established to allow successive simulation in order to optimize the control process. The control process contains variables that represent parameters such as, sensor inputs and actuator settings of the engine. When performance of the control process is optimized, a code (for example, source code written in C programming language) suitable for an embedded system is generated so that it can be downloaded into a microcontroller installed in a vehicle.
To develop control software for use in microcontrollers of different vehicle lines, different control processes can be established, each control process having variables representing parameters specific to a particular vehicle. Another approach is to develop a general purpose control process that includes variables representing all of the parameters of the engines in the multiple vehicle lines. By developing a general control process that targets multiple vehicle lines rather than multiple control processes that each target one vehicle line, duplicate efforts in developing the multiple control processes can be reduced. Because the general control process is often more complex than a control process that targets a particular vehicle, the software code generated from such a general control process may also be larger.